1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to imaging, and more particularly to systems and methods for enhancing a displayed image.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional image acquisition systems can acquire image data with greater tonal (brightness) dynamic range than can be presented using conventional softcopy display monitors, which are generally limited to distinguishing only 8-bits/channel (256 grey shades). For that reason, conventional image processing systems typically compress the tonal range of high-dynamic range data (i.e. data with more than 8 bits per channel) for display on conventional softcopy display monitors for first-phase image analysis. While this process can allow for relatively rapid review and exploitation of information contained in an image, the tone scale compression can remove subtle contrast information or very bright or very dark details in the image. For example, in shortwave infrared images acquired during periods of low ambient illumination, small regions of relatively high or relatively low thermal activity can lose information when displayed due to the tendency of conventional tonal compression methodologies to present regions of high thermal activity at the same high brightness level (i.e. blooming) and areas of low thermal activity with the same low brightness level (i.e. dark data clipping). And while some information loss can be recovered through manual manipulation of the acquired image data using conventional image enhancement methods that affect the entire image, such manipulations or enhancement methods can be prohibitively time consuming or otherwise impair the ability of a viewer to rapidly exploit the information contained in the acquired image data.
Such conventional methods and systems have generally been considered satisfactory for their intended purpose. However, there is still a need in the art for improved systems and methods of image enhancement. The present disclosure provides a solution for this need.